Ashes to Ashes
by Paradox.bookjunkie
Summary: 'You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.'
1. Ministry Fatalities

**So, hello. **

**This is a series of "training" excerpts between Bellatrix and Draco, probably set around after Malfoy failed to kill Dumbledore in book six and until he meets Harry, Ron, and Hermione at Malfoy Manor in book seven. Is set along the lines of my other story, **_**Breaking Through the Glass**_**, which is a Dramione, so…**

**Yeah.**

**Enjoy.**

**BTW, I don't follow some rules of grammar. My sentences start with 'and', or 'because' and aren't in proper sentences.**

**I right like people think. It's in a person's point of view. Do you think in full sentences? You'd be the first. : )**

**Hope that it doesn't bother some of you.**

**It sure as hell bothers my English teacher.**

******A/N everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's.**

**. . .**

**Anyway.**

**Hope you like it!**

…_._

_Song: Human by Christina Perri_

…_**.**_

"_You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind."_

–_Mahatma Ghandi_

…

He opened his eyes.

Black.

Green.

Silver.

His watery eyes could hardly make out any shapes in the room.

His ears, though, had no trouble hearing the sharp clack of her heels upon the hard floor as she sauntered dangerously up to his fallen body.

She leaned over him, a stale scent of something vile accompanying her, as it always had, her disgusting hair hanging in his face.

"Let's try that again, shall we, darling?"

Her voice was low, sharp.

It sent a shiver of dread down his spine.

"Yes, Aunt Bellatrix." He coughed, rolling on his side, heaving as his chest spasmed, resisting against the fluid that built in his lungs.

He'd taken to wearing long sleeved, high collared shirts to hide the effects his "training" had done to his frail body from his mother.

Bruises covered him from head to toe, purple and green, standing out among the pail, almost silver appearance of his skin.

Several deep gashes covered his body, after he'd failed to apply punishment to a small blood traitor girl, and received her fate as punishment instead.

He passed the husky cough he'd gained that accompanied to much application of the Cruciatus curse as a common cold, hoping the=at his poor mother would never have to know the truth.

Each time she punished him, though, it got worse.

She kicked him in the ribs, causing him to clench his jaws against the pathetic roan of pain, as her sharp voice cut through the dense air in the large, almost empty room like a knife.

"Get up then."

She spun expertly on a thin heel that raised her five or six inches off the ground, and stalked to the front of the room.

Raising himself painfully to all fours, ignoring the pain in his knees that protested, cramping.

He pushed himself into a standing position, cringing and panting from the exertion.

Unfortunately, he could now see the reason he'd once again been subject to torture.

"Good." She cooed huskily, chucking him under the chin with a pale finger on which a long , dark talon jutted.

She then turned to the subject that had stolen Draco's attention.

It was a man.

A Muggle Born.

And he'd been told to kill him.

To, in cold blood, kill a member of the Ministry, who was unarmed and tied to the tall, black chair in front of which Bellatrix was now standing.

The thought of it made him sick.

Bellatrix's lip curled up in a cruel expression.

As she spoke, she turned to face him once more.

"Since you were too much of a _coward, _Draco," she started, sneering the word coward as she did Mudblood or Blood Traitor.

"I have to finish the job."

The man, hearing this started to struggle, but she lifted her wand in a pale hand, an expression of cruel enjoyment written in her gaunt face.

"Avada Kedavra!"

He looked away, disgusted.

And the man was gone, dead.

In a flash of green light his life had ended.

If not by his hand, then by hers.

For _sport._

Her maniacal cackle filled the room.

He fought down the the cough tickling the back of his throat.

This was his life, now.

Days of blood.

Days of ashes.

Days of death.

…...

**So, a little darker than usual.**

**What do you guys think?**

**I need your opinions!**

**Please?**

**Review,**

**Like,**

**Critique!**

**Love you all!**

**~PARADOX**


	2. Blackmail and Heritage

**Hello! Thanks to Owlet for following my story!**

**I hope you guys enjoy! Please review!**

**Thanks for reading!**

******A/N everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's.**

* * *

_Song: La, La, La by Naughty Boy ft. Sam Smith_

_Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself._

_-James Anthony Froude_

* * *

The sessions with her weren't even the worst parts.

The worst was when his father joined in.

His father who, unlike his mother, didn't give a damn about him.

His father, who knew where to hit him so it hurt.

When he was little, he'd tried so hard – too hard – to be everything he wanted.

But, as he grew older, he realized what his father was.

He was a spider.

A sider, with long limbs, stuck into however many pies it had legs.

A lazy, fat spider that didn't move a muscle until its prey was right in front of it.

Waited for it to get caught in the web, then devouring it.

Not a morsel to spare.

Of course, now, Lucius had to face the boot.

He had to face that he wasn't at the top of the food chain any more. And that scared him.

Scared him to the point that he'd give up his own son, his own goddamn flesh and blood to something that wasn't even human.

Yes, the boot was about to fall, and there was no way Lucius Malfoy was going to be trapped under it.

As a sacrifice, he'd given up his son, his only heir, to be branded like a lowly piece of cattle and sent on an assassin mission.

Of course he'd failed.

How could he not, when he was looking into the eyes of the only man who'd ever cared for him?

And now, in light of that failure, the only person Draco had ever looked up at him was dead.

Albus Dumbledore, protector of Hogwarts, was dead.

And it was all his fault.

So, his high and mighty father had asked Bellatrix to help him oversee Draco's "training".

The two kept what actually happened in training privy to Narcissa, and Draco, knowing that if he ever breathed a single syllable to her he'd end up like the Muggle Born in the chair, kept his mouth shut.

* * *

**So, this is ANOTHER short one. This is probably how they all will be.**

**Sorry.**

**Review!**

**-Paradox **


	3. The Weight of Silence

**A/N everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's.**

The room was silent, save the clinking of knives and forks upon plates. The tall, arching cathedral ceiling stretched above their heads. Draco's hair shone silvery blonde in the strange bluish light that hovered over the long table, suspended by nothing. He looked up at it, blinking repeatedly.

He remembered when he was little, and the dinner table was always their place of conversation. Before he started going to Hogwarts, there had always at least been one, even whispered conversation, and it was awkwardly silent if there wasn't. Not to say this silent wasn't awkward, but this… it was a routine. Father came home, the food appeared, and they sat down to eat. When you were finished, you didn't wait for the others, you got up and left. Sometimes Father even had his food brought up to his study. There were stretches, days at a time, where Draco wouldn't even see his face.

And, of course, every Monday and Wednesday, Aunt Bellatrix came for supper.

She made it worse. Her long, black talons seemed to rip apart the food, tearing into it like a bird of prey. When it was just them, there was routine silence, but with _her_ there, there was a weight, hanging on their shoulders. The silence seemed loud. It circled the room, muffled and heavy.

He stood up. His chair scraped back, echoing shrilly around the room. His father was absent, and his mother hardly even managed to glance at him. But Aunt Bella noticed. She always did. She looked up. The chicken she'd been demolishing had left streaks of grease on her cruel face. "Draco?" she asked, her forced, sweet voice made his stomach lurch, curdling as if it was sour milk. He stretched a polite smile across his face, hoping that the effect was polite. "I was just going to clean up for our session today, Aunt." He said. She thought for a moment, black eyes flicking across his face. She nodded once, and returned to her disgusting meal.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He leaned against the bathroom door, letting out a sigh. He lowered himself into a crouch, resting his head on the door. He rubbed long, elegant fingers across the back of his neck. Jerking his head up at the sound of her voice travelling around the house, he stood up, inhaling deeply and resting his hands on the edges of the sink. He looked up at his pathetic reflection in the mirror. His face, even in one of the most flattering mirrors in the manor, looked terrible. Huge bags hung under his eyes. There was a cut over his left eyebrow where he'd cut himself on a piece of glass earlier that week.

Bellatrix, as punishment for yet another failure on his part, had smashed the closest thing she could get to-which happened to be a wineglass –and, as an afterthought, had sent the pieces flying about the room. After the entire room had been coated in tiny slivers of glass, he'd been told to clean up the room without magic. And just like that, she'd left. She seemed to travel in whirlwinds, her cruelty left behind in the little things: the cuts and bruises on his body, a little snide remark. Everywhere she went, she seemed to cause _disease_…

He straightened up as her talons danced a little jig on the other side of the door. He shivered, wiping his face anxiously with a shaking hand. He looked into his reflection once more, stone gray meeting their twins in the mirror. A tiny glint came into his eyes, and he turned, opening the door to her standing there with her wand out, plastering another smile on his face. Time to face the claws.


End file.
